The words of Raffaele Calabrò on the occasion of the inauguration of the XXVII academic year

8th November 2019

Mr. President of the Republic
Distinguished Rectors and Delegates
Civil, Military and Religious Authorities
Dear Guests and Colleagues
Dear Students and Families

I would like to extend my most cordial welcome to all; in particular, on behalf of the entire academic community, I would like to thank the President of the Republic who honors us with his presence.

The President Felice Barela reminded us that we have just celebrated 25 years of history. Allow me to briefly but sincerely thank all the people who every day - in secret and with a spirit of service - make the life of the Campus Bio-Medico University possible: Professors, managers of the University and the Polyclinic, health, nursing, technical and administrative personnel, the services for hospitality and care of the environments and of course our students and their families.

***

Leonardo da Vinci said: "The noblest pleasure is the joy of knowledge”. This phrase, in the year in which we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the great artist's death, represents the essence of the university's educational mission.

In fact, the University must aim at cultural and scientific training, but above all at the growth of knowledge and the unity of knowledge and not simply at the acquisition of technical and specialist skills.

This is what we try to achieveUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma when we talk about the so-called "global training”: a training that aims to transmit human, social and anthropological skills, also through teachings of philosophy, ethics and bioethics in all Degree Courses, in order to be able to open up to the territory and to the demands of civil society; an education aimed at making students "citizens of the world", open to comparison and multicultural dialogue, with the ambition of improving - through culture, knowledge and therefore their actions - the whole of society. 

As recently canonized Cardinal John Henry Newman, a great lover of university education, reminds us:"If, therefore, a practical purpose is to be assigned to a university course, I say that it is that of educating good members of society"(John Henry Newman, 1852, The Idea of ​​the University, speech VII): this wants to be the educational horizon in which we place our action as teachers and educators. The recent appointment of a Rector's Delegate for "Campus Life" activities fits into this framework, i.e. for all those initiatives that are not directly academic, but which have an important educational value, to help live the university years as a unique opportunity for growth in relationships, in human sensitivity, in cultural openness, in social responsibility.

The Academic Year that we are inaugurating today marks some significant innovations for our Institution: we have activated the Degree Course of "Medicine and Surgery”, an innovative course of Medicine and Surgery in English which, in collaboration with teachers and universities from various parts of the world, aims to train doctors capable of entering multiple health systems and providing assistance capable of responding to health needs in a context international and multicultural.

We have set up a Third Departmental Faculty in “Science and Technology for Man and the Environment”, which expands the educational offer and the role of research of our University by directing it towards emerging sectors of crucial development for modern society, such as the green economy, environmental sustainability, the new frontiers of the smart city and the circular economy.

The environmental issue, which has become a priority in many countries, is also a priority of our University, a main road towards which to direct students, families and professors to contribute to the protection and respect of our planet. In this line, our researchers are helping to identify low environmental impact strategies for the transformation of waste products into secondary raw materials.

We're also doing some careful thinking and redesigning of the Faculty of Engineering and evaluating the possibility of new master's degrees with a strong technological orientation, solid ethical and human training and an important link with local businesses.

Our University, in these 25 years, has grown and developed a lot, but has not lost the unifying identity element that is given by the concept of "to take care of"

  • "Taking care" of the patient, through the work of the University Hospital with its 400 beds, the training of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and the Schools of Specialization, as well as through the irreplaceable value of the training of the health professions in the Nursing, Physiotherapy courses and Radiology Techniques to re-propose a medicine attentive to the patient's needs, technologically advanced, but endowed with an authentic human and ethical dimension.
  • "Taking care" of the student in his university, professional, cultural AND human training, but with a clear international horizon, to allow him to have an impact in a working and social context that has no geographical boundaries.
  • "Taking care" of the environment, developing an ecological awareness, respectful of man and our "common home", approaching the world in which we live with amazement, wonder, respect and a sense of responsibility as an expression of a new humanism.
  • "Taking care" of society through high-impact scientific research, with its 48 Research Units, which is capable of having repercussions on the quality of life and is capable of solving (or attempting to solve) the great health, biotechnological and ethics of our time.
  • "Taking care" of the territory with the activation of the Emergency Department, to offer quality assistance to citizens, individuals and the community.
  • "Taking care" of the weakest and neediest, with voluntary work and international cooperation to promote a culture of solidarity and encounter. I am thinking, for example, of the numerous doctors and students who have recently returned from Tanzania or Peru, where they have been contributing, for years now, to the development of health and prevention activities.
  • "Taking care" of the elderly towards which we operate a historic promotional action and which is enriched with the forthcoming activation of a 12-bed Hospice to give dignity to the final phase of life and enhance man's fragility, accompanying him with charity and affection.

Before us are projects of great value that require commitment and determination: to develop internationalization, to grow in ties with businesses and the entrepreneurial fabric, to increase clinical and translational research, enhancing its effects in terms of Third Mission.

In the last year, as far as research is concerned, important results have been achieved, demonstrated both by the total number of publications in indexed journals and by the cumulative Impact Factor, which has exceeded the value of 2.000 points.

Furthermore, in 2019 the first spin-off participated by the University was founded, which deals with the development of devices for diagnosis, symptom monitoring and therapy management for Parkinson's patients.

To boost the goal of internationalization, we are encouraging the Erasmus programme for both students and faculty, and we are strongly committed to an exchange program of visiting professors with leading foreign universities.

Finally, the topic of Companies and relations with the world of work is strategic for our institution: it is the sign of a University that does not want to be self-referential but which is open to the requests of the territory, to contribute to a social, even before economic, relaunch of the country . The recent opening of an initial activity of our University in the center of Rome must be seen in this line of openness, contamination and "cross fertilization", as an opportunity to generate new projects, synergies and joint collaborations between universities and companies.

Before concluding, allow me to thank the President of the Republic once again for his presence and availability.

A new academic year begins today, the last of my mandate. In recent years I have been able to verify the truthfulness of what Blessed Alvaro del Portillo said in the Inauguration Mass of the first academic year, 1993. Msgr. Alvaro del Portillo: “This University was born small, but it is already big, because you want to build it with a big heart".

That's right, President. I was lucky enough to meet and work daily with people with a "big heart", who knew (and who know how) to "dream", who place their professionalism at the service of others.

This is the most important heritage of our University and this is the wish I want to address to students at the beginning of the new year: always have a big heart, put your talents at the service of others, spend your time improving society, seek happiness and not profit, justice and not compromise to be creators and protagonists of a better world.